


Gem Tales

by HarmonicHalcyon



Category: Steven Universe - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4388363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmonicHalcyon/pseuds/HarmonicHalcyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prisoner in an enchanted castle, bound by a spell that can only be broken by trust in the very person who holds her captive. Golden apples, feasts that never grow cold or stale, and a fatal rose. Transformations: Princesses disguised as monsters, and monsters who become queens. Fairy tales featuring Gems as villains and heroines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Captor and the Captive: 1

A voice like that of a bell or a bird made of glass is calling her name. "Lapis... Lapis... Lapis." It's sweet, and familiar, until she wakes up, and remembers where she is.

She lies stretched out on a four poster bed, the curtains flung back, because she needs to be able to see the room around her at all times, or else she doesn't sleep at night.

The bedroom is fit for an empress: Velvet bed clothes of cobalt blue, fringed with elaborate gold and silver embroidery. The windows of her bedroom are taller than most houses she's ever seen, giving her the illusion of open skies. She has a large wardrobe full of as many dresses as she could want, and a dressing table laden with little porcelain pots, slender glass bottles with marble stoppers, pewter brushes and tortoiseshell combs and ivory hair pins.  There is a golden carriage clock sitting on her night stand, and it's this that chirps her name. It has no eyes, and no discernible way of sensing the world, but when Lapis sits up, it falls silent. The great, oak doors to her bedroom are closed, but not locked.

Lapis is a prisoner, a captive bird in a gilded cage. She rises from her bed, and pads on bare feet towards the double doors, leaving her bedroom. She bothers neither with cosmetics, nor dressing. The sun dress she always wears will suffice. She will not wear the periwinkle silks or midnight chiffon, and she will not entertain any notion of being an honored _guest_. She will not humor her captor.

 

In the dining hall is a long table, set with china and sparkling silverware. There are twelve tall chairs at this table, but Lapis sits alone. As always, there is a feast laid out before her, one that is always fresh and piping with steam, no matter what hour of the day she chooses to emerge from her room. The food is the one concession she makes: She needs her strength if she's ever going to escape.

There is roast mutton and there are stuffed pheasants; there are bowls piled high with grapes from far vineyards, and bowls of golden apples. There are strawberries redder and sweeter than any she ever tasted outside these prison walls, and pitchers full of cream. There are crystal jars of honey and nectar, and there is wine the color of blood or plums, beside goblets of pomegranate juice and spicy cider. There are great loaves of fragrant bread, and slabs of cheese bigger than her head. Lapis eats mechanically, tasting none of it: Her mind is at work.

It is not walls that confine her, but words. She is bound by the magic invoked by the oath she took: Her life, for that of another. Thus far, she can see no loophole, no matter how many times she thinks over her situation, recounting the words she spoke the day she gave herself up.

 

_"Don't take him. Take me. I will take his place."_

_"You will take his place?"_

_"Yes."_

_"You will live with me, in my castle, for the rest of your days?"_

_"Yes."_

At any moment, she can leave. She can open those grand doors, cross through the rose garden, unlatch the gate, and be free. But then _he_ would not be free, his life would be forfeit, and she knew she would become a prisoner of her own mind, weighed down by her guilty conscience, never to know happiness or peace again.

How does one break a magic spell? How can she break an oath, without cursing the one person who ever treated her like a living thing- the one person who heeded her cries for help, so long ago?

 


	2. The Captor and the Captive: 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captor and the Captive: 2

When Lapis finishes her meal, she takes to wandering the castle's halls. After having lived here for nearly a year, she has fallen into something of a routine.

First, her steps take her to the library. Rows of shelves tower all the way to the skylight, where she can see clouds drifting across the roof of the sky (another infuriating reminder of freedom that is not hers. She wishes there were not quite so many windows and skylights). There are books as thick and heavy as slabs of stone, and books that are chiseled into actual stone. There are innumerable scrolls and leaflets and published essays and journals. Some books are bound in fresh leather, and some are crumbling tomes on the brink of disintegration. They are strange books, and they are all alike in that she can't ever seem to read them.

 

Whether she opens a scroll or a novel or a dictionary, the contents are the same: Blurry, indistinct words that shift, kaleidoscopic, under her gaze. They are like shapes glimpsed under the surface of a murky pond: If she stares long enough, she thinks she can make out a fin or a tail, something recognizable. Once or twice, the strange, hypnotic script has formed concrete words. She checks the books daily, hoping there will be some hint, some clue as to how she can break the spell she submitted herself to. Today, the words blink in and out of focus like signals in the fog. She stares at them until her eyes sting. When the clock sings the hour (the library's is a grandfather clock, with a deep, brassy voice) she finally gives up and leaves the library.

 

Her next course takes her to a room full of windows. The floor is broad and bare, and the walls are free of ornamentation, unlike the other rooms of the castle. Each window has a seat before it. Lapis takes a seat before the first window on her left, and watches. Rather than showing her the rose garden that winds around the castle in all directions, the window looks out on a scene that she can see as clearly as if she were standing there herself. Curtains part like clouds, and nimble, long-limbed dancers leap into the center of a grand stage. They leap, twirl, and, when the moment calls for it, fall to the ground in theatric agony, and they are so beautiful that they almost make Lapis forget about the impossibility of her situation. When she tires of this, she moves to the next window. This time it is a poet, someone whose face she thinks she can almost remember from a portrait- someone famous and long dead. He seems to speak to her directly, looking into her eyes as words of rapture fall rhythmically from his lips. Lapis barely hears the words, only feels the emotion in them: Longing, love, freedom. Soon, she gets up, and this time she leaves the room without looking through any of the other windows.

 

Time has passed. The hall clock, with a cramped, tinny voice, announces: "Six o' clock."

 

Lapis's fingers curl into fists, digging into her palms. She sets her jaw, and begins the trek back to her bedroom. Her dinner is waiting for her there, at a table set for two. Lapis sits down, and waits.

She doesn't have to wait long before she hears the heavy tread of her captor across the floorboards, ancient wood creaking from her great weight. Her captor's head pushes through the threshold, great, snowy mane bristling behind her like a living pelt. She crosses to the table, and sits down. The chair looks like it was built for a child, under her great bulk.

Jasper clears her throat, and speaks, in her rough voice. "And how was your day?"

Lapis says nothing. She stares at the space just over Jasper's shoulder.

"I hope you like it here," Jasper continues. "If there's anything you need, let me know."

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Lapis's face hardens.

This goes on for half an hour or more: Jasper, in her rude, harsh voice, asking banal questions, ignoring Lapis's unbroken silence. Her large hands- more like paws, really- fumble with the comparatively tiny silverware, and she eats, while Lapis touches nothing. Finally, she looks at the carriage clock, and stands.

"Lapis," she growls. Her face contorts into a pained snarl. "Do you trust me?"

It's almost more than Lapis can bear. She wants to rage, to curse and turn over the table and break the dinner plates and throw the goblets at Jasper's head. Instead, a shiver runs through her, and her nails break the skin of her palms.

"No," she whispers.

Jasper grimaces, and then her expression clears. She nods, as if having performed some unpleasant duty, and leaves. The door slams shut behind her. Once Lapis can no longer hear her heavy, creaking steps, she takes up Jasper's empty plate, and smashes it against the door. Shards of glass rain to the ground, and for now, Lapis is almost satisfied.

 

 

 


	3. The Captor and the Captive: 3

It's well past sunset before Lapis leaves her room again. She knows that Jasper will not be back, not until tomorrow night, though she's not sure where, exactly, she resides in this enchanted castle. She has never seen her except for when she appears at six o' clock, with her exhaustive small talk, always ending dinner with that same question. Lapis steps over the broken glass halfheartedly, not caring if she cuts her feet, and finds her way to the staircase that leads to the eastern tower. It winds around and around, more steps than Lapis can count, yet she never seems tired once she reaches the final step, and barely any time seems to have passed at all.

The tower room has walls, a floor, and a ceiling of glass. As she stands there and looks below, it almost seems as though she's standing in midair. A carpet has been laid out, to give a semblance of groundedness. The stars are just beginning to appear, and the garden seems to be miles below. All around her are pewter trees with translucent leaves, and among them flit birds of every color of the rainbow, singing sweetly and murmuring words in a dozen tongues. This is the aviary, and the only place where Lapis can find company, of a sort, outside of her captor's nightly visits.

As she sits on a stool, three birds flutter down to land on her knees, greeting her.

"Lapis Lazuli," chirps a canary.

"Yes," Lapis says. "That's my name."

"Fly," says a red, crested bird. "Fly away."

"I can't," Lapis says.

"Fly," the red bird insists.

"How? Tell me how!"

The birds fall silent, staring at her with tiny, jewel-bright eyes.

"Bed time," says a blue jay.

"Not yet," Lapis says. "Tell me, please. How do I break the spell? How can I win my freedom, without hurting Steven?"

"Bed time," the blue jay says, again. "Sleep."

"Bed time," the canary adds. "Bed time."

"Sleep," the red bird agrees.

Lapis tries several times to get more out of them. The birds are fairly fluent and will speak to her about any subject under the sun, in their fragmented way, but whenever she broaches the subject of her captivity, they always repeat the same thing: "Bed time. Sleep."

When she is near to tears she finally gives up. The birds sing her name like a lullaby, flapping away and ascending to their pewter perches. Weary, Lapis decides that they are right, and that it's time for her to return to her bedroom, and sleep.

At the bottom of the staircase, there is a long hall lined with portraits. Most of the faces in the portraits look half-familiar, in the same way the poet in the window did. She always finds that her eyes come to rest on one portrait in particular, causing her to pause and contemplate it.

The portrait is of a great, powerful warrior, standing with one leg elevated on a rock, before the sea. Behind her is a sinking ship. Her hair falls around her shoulders and hips like bursts of white sea foam. She has a stoic mien, but something in her gold eyes is wild and frantic, like the eyes of a trapped animal. The warrior woman is beautiful, and fierce, and her portrait makes Lapis deeply uncomfortable; yet she can never seem to avoid looking at it as she tries to pass.

When she returns to her room the broken glass is gone. She finds herself absurdly disappointed. She can't leave, and nothing she does has any lasting effect on this place. One of the many strange powers of the castle ensures that every mess she makes is cleaned, every broken thing replaced by something identical. She has yet to see a single servant, but then, it's magic, after all.

She ignores the smell of soapy water wafting from the bath that has been drawn for her by the castle, and climbs into bed, falling into an exhausted sleep.

 

She dreams of wandering the garden. The roses around her blur like watercolors, and she feels a sense of resignation and ennui settling into her chest like a sinking lead weight, as her feet mindlessly tread the same garden paths over and over again. Then she hears something: Someone sobbing quietly. She steps off the path and pushes through the rose bushes, oblivious to thorns that scrape her hands and wrists, until she finds someone curled up at the foot of a tree.

It's the warrior woman in the painting. She cries softly, her long, wild hair wrapped around her like a sheet. When she sees Lapis, she starts to her feet, and regards her with the same stony, dauntless expression she wears in her portrait, even as tears slowly creep down her cheeks.

"Free me," she says. "Let me go."

"Are you a prisoner, too?" Lapis asks.

The woman looks at her with an expression that tries to be contemptuous, but only manages to be frightened. "Let me go. Let me go, Lapis. Only you can set me free. Why won't you let me go?"


	4. The Captor and the Captive: 4

When Lapis wakes, she lies in bed for a long, long time. The sun rises in the sky, and the shadows in her room creep slowly, shifting as morning becomes noon. She thinks about the dream, and what it could mean. She thinks about the woman, whose familiarity fills her head with a harsh note of urgency that the other half-familiar portraits do not. For six hours she thinks, and reaches no conclusions.

"L-Lapis," stutters the carriage clock, as if starting from its own reverie.

"I'm awake," Lapis says. The clock does not respond.

Lapis gets up. Her body feels sticky, but again she ignores the basin full of hot water, and doesn't glance sideways at the wardrobe. As she leaves her bedroom, she can already smell the medley of scents that accompany her enchanted lunch. But this time she does not go to the dining room. She goes back to the hall of portraits, and stares at the painting of the warrior woman.

"Who are you?" she whispers, and though she is in a castle full of clocks that know her name, and birds that recite poetry, the portrait behaves as any ordinary, unenchanted object.

"Are you a prisoner, too?" she asks. She waits a moment, and then another moment. Then she lifts her hands and pries the painting off the wall. Underneath, there is a pale square on the wallpaper, where the portrait has shielded it from dust and sun-stains. She leans it up against the wall, and feels the space, pressing on it, hoping something might open up. But the wall is an ordinary wall.

Lapis considers the painting, and thinks about bringing it back to her room for further study. She immediately discards the idea, though she's not sure why. Or perhaps she doesn't want to admit to herself that she won't be able to sleep tonight with those fierce, terrified eyes in the same room with her.

She carefully hangs the portrait back on the wall, and slowly walks away. Soon, she finds herself in the rose garden.

Lapis rarely comes to the garden. The carmine roses, with their delicate perfumes, only serve to make her melancholy, a feeling she tries her best to avoid. Nonetheless, she pauses to look at a rose, blooming but not quite mature, frozen in its unraveling. It looks identical to the rose Steven gave her, half a year ago or more. Neither of them could have known the trouble his gift would cause them both.

She breathes a sigh, and continues down her path. To her amazement, she finds the very same tree she dreamed last night. She pushes her way through the rose bushes, and, like in her dream, the thorns tear at her. But at the foot of the tree there is nothing, and no one.

Lapis comes to kneel in the spot where the woman of her dream stood, touching it with her hand, parting the grass, looking among the roots. She thought she might find a sign: A strand of pale hair, perhaps, or the scent of an ocean breeze lingering in the air. Though she finds nothing, her heart beats a little faster. The woman from the portrait, and the tree, which she is certain she has never seen before, having never come to this part of the garden until now: Neither of these things could be coincidences.


	5. The Captor and the Captive: 5

That night, when Jasper visits, Lapis decides it's time to change their routine. When Jasper asks her if she's happy here, she answers.

 

"No," she says.

 

Jasper blinks, and peers at Lapis. "No?"

 

"No," Lapis says. "I am not happy here."

 

Jasper needs a moment to adjust to this change. "What can I do to make you happy?" she asks, her voice croaking. She seems distinctly uncomfortable, even cautious.

 

"I want to see Steven again," Lapis says. "Just for a little while. I need to know he's happy, and safe."

 

"No," Jasper says. "It... well. Maybe." She pauses, thinking, and then looks at the clock.

 

"Tomorrow, at six, meet me in the hall of windows." She throws her napkin down, and starts to leave. At the threshold of the door, she hesitates.

"Do you trust me?"

 

"No," Lapis says.

 

Jasper nods, and leaves.

 

Lapis feels peaceful tonight. Something has changed. And if one thing can change, then perhaps the magic of the castle is not omnipotent after all. Freedom would be best; change, for now, is enough. If Jasper keeps her word, then she will be able to see her friend again. If she can see that Steven is alive and well, then she'll find her strength once more. She falls asleep easily, without going to visit the birds in their pewter trees.

 

This time, when she dreams of the rose garden, the warrior woman is waiting for her under the tree. She is no longer crying, but her face still bears that mixture of rage and fear, bubbling up under the surface of a steely countenance. Her thick, tangled hair is wet, and she smells like brine.

"Let me go," she says.

"I can't," Lapis says. "I don't know how to leave. I can't help you if I can't help myself."

The woman stares at her, hard. "You're a monster."

"I'm not a monster," Lapis says. "I'm doing what needs to be done."

The warrior woman snaps a rose off at the stem, and throws it like a lance. It starts to grow in size, becoming longer and sharper. As it pierces her chest, she wakes up.

It's still dark, and Lapis lies very still, her pulse thrumming. She can almost feel the lance's sting, but she knows it must be some other, more minor pain, perhaps a muscle cramp, or a scab from yesterday's venture into the rose garden. She resists the urge to slip her hand under her dress to check, to be sure that there is no wound.

She gets out of bed. The carriage clock shouts, "Lapis!" and she stops in her tracks. She waits for a moment, and the clock says nothing further. At first, she thinks she might not be allowed to leave her room before sunrise, but then she realizes that the carriage clock was simply confused by her early rising, and trying, belatedly, to perform its duty.

"Imagine a clock not knowing the time," Lapis says aloud, and, to her surprise, she smiles.

It will be at least twelve hours before she meets Jasper at the hall of windows, but she heads in that direction anyway, passing through the dining room. She has never been here at this hour and she sees that the table is already laden with her breakfast. She takes a strawberry as she goes. She is in high spirits today, in spite of the violent dream. She's not sure what to make of the warrior: She seems like someone who needs her help, and yet she threw the rose lance at her. And if it turns out that Lapis will be here for the rest of her life, she would like to be able to make peace with the other prisoner. If only she could find her in the waking world.

She's not sure what she expects when she goes to the windows. The poet in his night cap? The stage, empty and dark? But the scenes spring to life with as much energy and vigor as ever as soon as she approaches to watch them, each of them different from any of the performances she's seen before. She sees a woman dressed in glimmering scales, dancing in and out a lake as gracefully as a ballerina dances on dry land, and a magician releasing an explosion of white doves from a hat. Lapis doesn't stay to watch for very long. She goes to the aviary.

This time, an owl, a finch, and a crow come to sit with her.

"There's another woman in this castle," Lapis tells them. "I think she's a prisoner, like me. Do you know where she is?"

"A woman," the finch says. "A woman, a woman."

"A prisoner," the crow says.

"Down," says the owl.

"Down?" Lapis asks.

"Go down, and deeper," the owl says. "Below. Beneath."

"Prisoner, prisoner, prisoner," the crow says.

As she leaves the birds fly away from her, and she can hear the crow calling her name, "Lapis, Lapis, Lapis," in the same grating way it chanted the word "prisoner."

Lapis goes as deep into the castle as she knows how. The lowest room, which is on the ground floor, is the kitchen, a scoop of a room with three short steps leading down into it, where a fire is always burning in the range.

"Down, and deeper," Lapis murmurs, as she moves around the room, opening cupboards, peering underneath boxes, and moving sacks of flour and grain.

She searches the kitchen thoroughly, going as far as to peer into the soot bin, and lifting each object at least once before setting it down. She even gets down on her hands and knees, feeling the cracks between the floorboards with her fingers, trying to find a loose board. When she finds herself sticking her hand into a mouse hole up to the wrist, and pulling out a handful of lint, she decides it's time to move on.

"The birds are only here for her amusement, after all," she says to herself. "They won't betray the master of the castle."

Next, she goes to the garden. She returns to the spot where she met the warrior from the portrait, and finds nothing, just as before. In spite of her words, she can't forget what the owl said so easily, not when it's the first coherent answer she's gotten from any of the birds about the matter of the castle.

She spends hours in the garden, looking for anything that might take her 'down,' such as a rabbit hole, or even a gopher hole. Unfortunately, she finds no such thing. With an hour to spare before she meets with Jasper, she finds her way to the library.

The words on the pages are dripping like fresh ink and rain. They form vague shapes and abstract patterns. Once, Lapis thinks she sees a face in the ink, four eyes staring up at her from the page, but like the rest of the patterns, it dissolves and reforms into something else. 

"Six o' clock," the grandfather clock intones. Lapis drops the book and flies from the room, making her way to the hall of windows as fast as she can.


	6. The Captor and the Captive

When Lapis reaches the hall of windows, Jasper is already there. She stands, back straight, arms folded behind her back. She barely tilts her head to look at Lapis over her shoulder, before pulling a chair out. Lapis approaches slowly, catching her breath.

"I've already seen the performers behind the glass," she says. "Where's Steven?"

"Sit," Jasper says. "You'll see him." She makes up for her uncertainty by being gruffer than usual, but Lapis can still hear a note of doubt. Nonetheless, she takes the seat, settling before the window. At first, it's dark. She sees her reflection, and Jasper's, golden eyes shining in the glass. She can hear Jasper breathing behind her, slow, heavy, like a beast powered by a large bellows. Lapis closes her hands into fists, and stares harder, avoiding Jasper's reflected gaze.

Behind the glass, a stage lights up. Lapis can see it as though she's sitting in a high seat in an amphitheater. 'Below' her there are rows and rows of blurry-headed people making up the audience. There's a small figure on the stage, and his voice carries across the rows of seats, and through the glass.

"What disease do you get when you decorate for Christmas? Tinselitus!" The audience roars with laughter.

"All right, all right! So why don't people play poker in the jungle? Too many cheetahs!" The blurry people are hysterical, falling out of their seats, gasping for breath.

Suddenly, Lapis seems to be closer, and she can see the small figure. It's Steven, wearing a tuxedo with the collar loosened and his bow tie undone. He holds a scotch glass full of milk in one hand as he starts to recite another joke.

"Steven!" Lapis's hand hits the glass, and she half rises from her chair.

"Huh?" Steven looks startled, and he looks right back at Lapis.

"Steven, are you all right?"

"Lapis?" 

"Are you safe?"

"Lapis, where are you?" Steven starts to look panicked.

"I'm in the castle, Steven, remember? I took your place. I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Are you all right?"

Steven jumps down from the stage, and starts pawing his way through the audience, climbing towards Lapis, but as he moves Lapis's view of him draws back, always far enough to be unreachable, but never so far that she loses sight of him. "Lapis! We've been looking for you!"

"Don't!" Lapis says fiercely, and she stands from her chair. "Leave me! I'll be fine! Be happy, Steven. Be safe!"

A massive pair of billowing red curtains falls from the sky on the other side of the window, bigger than the sails of a ship, and as they meet in the center they cut off Lapis's view of Steven. Once more, the scene behind the window goes dark. Lapis sits back in the chair with a 'thump.' Her heart is racing.

_That's it, then. That's all I wanted. To see Steven alive and well._

She doesn't feel how she expected to feel. She feels neither resigned nor relieved. Instead, she feels troubled, and frightened. What did he mean when he said 'we're looking for you?' If he comes back to the castle, then he'll be a prisoner, too, and everything she's done will be for nothing.

"What did you do?" she asks Jasper. Jasper has been standing behind her all this time, making no sound other than her terrible breathing. When Lapis raises her head to look into her face, she sees a flash of confusion in Jasper's eyes, quickly replaced by an expression of indifference. Jasper shrugs.

"It's not my doing," she says. "It's the magic of the castle."

"You're the master of the castle," Lapis says. "Can you bring him back?"

Jasper shakes her head. "I don't know."

Lapis thinks it over. She doesn't want the castle to bring him back. There's a chance he might get stuck behind the window, forced to perform his comedy act for all of eternity, a slave to the castle's strange magic.

"Very well," she says, quietly. She stands, and leaves the hall. 

 

Lapis has a great deal of time to think in this castle. She is always alone, and save for the clocks, the birds, and the crackle of a fireplace, everything is very, very quiet. She goes through her usual routines and visits the usual places, but her mind is not on these activities.

Jasper returns to her bedroom at six, like clockwork. This time, Lapis eats dinner with her. They eat in silence, until it's time for Jasper to ask her questions.

"Are you happy here?"

"I am content," Lapis says. She doesn't need to look up from her plate to see Jasper's eyes widen in surprise.

 

"Is there anything else I can give you?"

 

"I want for nothing," Lapis says.

 

There's a long pause from Jasper. Then, "Do you trust me?"

 

"Yes."

 

The silence that follows is like a held breath between them. Lapis looks up, and Jasper is staring at her.

 

"Something is supposed to happen now," Jasper says. But nothing happens. Jasper leaves, looking angry and perplexed.

 

* * *

 

 

Lapis is confronted by the warrior woman in her dream. She lies on her side, the rose lance sticking in her ribs, liquid gushing from her.

 

"You lied," she gasps, as clear fluid pumps from her wound, pooling around her prone body. "You lied, and you've cursed us both." The water pouring from the warrior woman is starting to flood the garden, and it rises around Lapis's legs, past her waist, over her shoulders, flowing into her mouth, tasting of salt.

Lapis wakes to wetness, and it terrifies her. She rips the sheets from the bed as she leaps from it, knocking the carriage clock from the nightstand. The carriage clock cracks neatly down the middle,  and cries a sad "Lapis?" before falling silent forever.

Chest heaving, sheets tangled around her feet, Lapis is slow to realize that she stands on dry carpet. But the wetness! That was real. She stumbles back to the bed, her hands roving over the place where her body lay not moments before. The mattress is wet, and so is she, her hair sticking to her face. Sweat. She must have been sweating in her sleep, perspiration pouring off her during the nightmare.

Lapis sighs, and looks at the broken carriage clock, feeling a sudden pang of regret. She stoops and picks it up gently, setting it back on the nightstand. She can't explain how, exactly, but she can tell the life- or the magic- has gone from it. She has lost her only constant companion in the castle. Other than the warrior woman, that is, with her senseless begging, and her cryptic accusations.

Lapis moves around her room, restless. There is the moon, shining through the window, and she flings the curtains wide and stands before it. It suddenly occurs to her that the moon is always full whenever she looks at it, but she looks at it so infrequently, that could easily be due to the passage of time. And the skies are always bright blue, dotted by a handful of cottony clouds. There is never any wind or rain. Is that, too, the magic of the castle?

She swallows the salty, sour spit in her mouth, and with it comes a hot draught of rage, burning through her belly. Give her iron bars. Give her cold stone to sleep on, and rats for company. Give her the _reality_ of her situation, not a beautiful, unchanging dream, not this blithe sameness meant to lure her into complaisance. She can accept her fate, but this, with velvet curtains and sumptuous feasts and infinite sunny days and shining nights, this is an insult almost too great to bear. _  
_

Before she's aware of it, she's stalking down the halls, her dress flapping behind her as she moves. She makes her way to the picture gallery, and stares up at the warrior woman in the painting.

" _Who are you?_ What do you want from me?"

Her hands fly out, and she starts to tear the painting from the wall, but something stops her. Some nameless fear quashes her fury, and she takes the painting from the wall gently, setting it on the ground.

"We could leave this place," she says. "Or we could meet each other, and make the most of our sentence together. But you won't explain anything! Stop frightening me and tell me what I need to do!"

 

Lapis stands there for a long time, staring down at the portrait. She half expects it to blink, or to start speaking to her. When nothing happens, she feels the exhaustion settle in, and she leaves, returning to her bed. She doesn't dream about the warrior woman for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

 

"Are you happy?"

 

"I am content."

 

"Is there anything I can give you to make you happier?"

 

"I want for nothing."

 

"Do you trust me?"

 

"Yes."

 

The warrior woman is changing in Lapis's dreams. She's dying, and she's becoming something else: It's a blending of death and metamorphosis, as only dreams can blend meanings. She's turning as green as the sea water she bleeds, and the garden is an ocean of her blood and tears. Lapis floats gently on the surface of the sea, amidst waterlogged rose petals, and listens to her screaming.

 

* * *

 

 

Lapis plays her role. She repeats the same speech every night, and Jasper begins to look worried, her eyes hooded and distracted. Even Lapis is not entirely sure what she's doing, but anything that makes Jasper anxious seems worth doing. It's a new form of defiance, more potent than the nightly refusals of before.

To her surprise, the warrior woman of her dreams makes another appearance as herself again. The green tint has disappeared.The rose lance is gone, and she has bound her wounded side with torn sheets of silk. Water drips from her and forms puddles, but the sea of saltwater blood is absent. The rose garden looks as it might in the waking world. 

For the first time since she started appearing in Lapis's dreams, she grabs her by the shoulders. Lapis cries out, but the warrior's grip is like iron.

"This is what you wanted," she snarls, her salty breath washing over Lapis's face. "This is what you did to us." Her arms clench around Lapis like a vice, crushing her to her chest, and her mouth covers Lapis's mouth, as she suffocates Lapis in her embrace. 

Lapis feels agony rip through her as she begins to sink into the warrior woman, and the warrior woman's body goes right through her, an arm plunging through her chest, a leg merging with hers. It's the opposite of being torn apart, and even more horrible, and Lapis begins to beg to wake up. She sees her hand flail out before her, green-skinned, before everything goes black.

Unconsciousness merges into consciousness, and Lapis sits up in her cold, sweat-soaked bed. Breathing into the stillness of the castle, she makes another decision.

 

* * *

 

"Are you happy here?"

"I am content."

"Is there anything I can give you?"

"I want for nothing."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

Jasper is beginning to look desperate. For the first time it occurs to Lapis that she seems to be trapped in this routine: She only comes at six o' clock. She asks her questions, and regardless of Lapis's answer, she leaves.

"Where do you go when you leave me?" Lapis asks.

Jasper stares at her, her jaw working. "Down," she says, finally.

 


	7. The Captor and the Captive: 7

Lapis has a plan.

 

Dinner with Jasper unfolds as it does every night. Lapis, mechanically, repeats her lies, and Jasper accepts them. When she turns to leave, Lapis waits until the door shuts. She waits until she hears Jasper's footsteps halfway down the hall. Then, as quietly as possible, she eases the oak doors open, and slips through the crack.

She sees her captor's back, drawing farther away as she walks down the hall, and Lapis's heart starts to thud in her chest. Jasper hasn't noticed that Lapis left the room.

 

Jasper approaches the stairs, and turns to descend. Lapis falls back against the wall, hiding in the shadows. She's not willing to underestimate how good Jasper's peripheral vision might be.

The next part is going to be difficult. She waits until her captor has tread five stairs- ten- and then begins to follow. Luckily, Jasper's heavy steps go a long way towards masking her own light footfall. Nonetheless, she moves carefully, trying to find a balance between speed and stealth. At the bottom of the stairs, Jasper turns again, and Lapis drops, compressing herself into a ball and huddling behind a baluster. It is several seconds before she peers out, and to her alarm, she sees nothing of Jasper. She takes the last twelve steps two at a time, bounding on the balls of her feet as silently as she can manage. At the last moment, she sees a swathe of candlelight fall across white hair, and darts into a dimly lit hallway after Jasper, just before she turns through a door.

Lapis is surprised to find that they are progressing through a series of rooms that lead to the kitchen. It's a roundabout way to get there, and Lapis wonders why Jasper takes this route. Moving through the rooms is even more difficult than the stairs: The door always swings shut after Jasper, and Lapis has to wait a moment before opening it, never knowing if or when her captor might be looking back. There is a moment, right after slipping through a door, that Jasper does stop, and turns her head slightly, glancing over her shoulder. Lapis freezes behind an empty wardrobe, smelling dust and moth balls. She can hear Jasper breathing, and she hears a rustle- hair? Fabric? She seems to twist on her feet, and Lapis holds her breath. At any moment it seems like she might be discovered. Then Jasper sighs, and moves on.

Lapis knows exactly where Jasper is going, now, and there is no need to worry that she'll lose sight of her. She hangs back for thirty seconds, and then slowly, slowly, creeps through the kitchen door.

Jasper is on her hands and knees before the mouse hole. The idea of the enormous woman crawling through the mouse hole is absurd, and Lapis stifles a wild, terrifying urge to laugh. She claps her hand over her mouth, and feels three beads of sweat form on her brow, distinctly.

If she made any sound, Jasper seems not to have heard it. Before Lapis's very eyes, the mouse hole begins to grow. The wall has gone soft, rippling almost like fluid, but still opaque, holding its shape even as the hole stretches and gapes. It swallows Jasper, and then begins to shrink.

There is a moment's indecision, a moment that Lapis is losing as she stands there. She darts through the hole before it has time to shrink back to its normal size, and immediately regrets it.

Lapis might have gone back to her room, and followed Jasper to the mouse hole another day. If this is where Jasper goes every night, after dinner, then she would have had infinite chances to follow her again, wouldn't she? It's dark and close inside the wall. The air is thick with dust, and it's all Lapis can do not to choke. And where is Jasper? Lapis can't see anything beyond her own nose in this heavy darkness. She tries to stand, and hits her head on something. Swallowing a cry of pain, she lowers herself to her hands and knees, and begins to crawl.

 

There is cold stone beneath her hands, covered in grit, and occasionally things more lumpy and gruesome than grit, which Lapis doesn't want to think about. Ahead, she thinks she hears Jasper's bulk scraping through the darkness. Where in the world are they? Does Jasper live in this hole? Lapis had always imagined that there must be a master bedroom somewhere, something ten times as luxurious as her own, as befitting of the owner of this castle. Several other possibilities cross her mind: It's a secret passageway to a master bedroom (but why the need for secrecy? Why go to all the trouble of crawling through dust and grit?), or it's a secret passageway to something else. Perhaps there is a vault somewhere behind the kitchen wall, or a master brain, powering the castle's enchantment. This thought excites Lapis, and she barely cringes when her hand falls on something sharp and crunchy.

 

Wiping her hand on her dress, she rises up on her knees, and begins to move forward, throwing her hands out before her. Her hand touches a wooden beam at just about forehead height, and she gratefully ducks beneath it.

 

Then she notices that her knees are wet and cold. In fact, the farther she goes, the wetter she becomes. She now finds herself wading through cold water up to her hips. Has she reached a sewer? No, that doesn't make sense. Does it?

There is light, here. It's a murky, greyish green light, but light nonetheless. Lapis can see that she has entered a stone chamber, with a window, high above. The window has iron bars, and this is where the light filters through.

She hears a groan, and something rattles. Jasper, a dark, lumpen shape on the ground, rolls over, wrapped in chains.

Lapis leaps back, and gasps. This time, Jasper hears her. She heaves herself upright, and the simple movement causes a cacophony of rusty clinking in the chains that bind her. They are everywhere: There is a massive iron collar around her neck, so heavy that Lapis wonders how Jasper's neck isn't broken, and four chains are attached to it. These chains rise above her, attaching to the walls via thick, iron brackets. The effect reminds Lapis of one of the puppet shows glimpsed in the hall of windows, though the 'strings' only attach to the wall, instead of some puppet master's control bar. Furthermore, there are shackles on Jasper's wrists, and chains that wrap around her torso lovingly, with no discernible purpose, as though they grew on her like creeping vines.

Lapis's reeling mind can make no sense of the sight before her. Jasper's eyes open, and the yellow light of them pierces through the dark.

"You!"

"Why- why-" Lapis says.

"You did this to me!"

"I didn't- how could I...? I'm... I'm a prisoner!"

Jasper roars. It's unlike anything Lapis has ever heard before- too beastlike to come from a person, too full of pain and rage to come from a beast.

**"LET ME GO!"**

 

 

 

 


	8. The Captor and the Captive: 8

Water is gushing through the walls. Water is pouring through the cracks, and falling on their heads from above. Lapis feels it lift her easily, feels herself float like a cork.

 

"I don't know what's happening," Lapis says, but part of her does know, and that's why the water is rushing in.

 

Jasper watches her with the eyes of a captive wolf. She watches, even as sea water closes over her head. They both seem to feel the fault line growing in Lapis, something cracking, letting power through, letting through the terror at the prospect of eternal captivity. When Lapis hears the chains snap, she almost thinks she's hearing some part of herself.

Jasper frees herself, and with a powerful kick, she lunges at Lapis, hands reaching for her neck. Lapis jerks back, and the water swells and pushes them both through the wall. The wall topples like a piece of scenery in a play, and they're washed, struggling, into the entrance hall of the castle. It makes no sense whatsoever, but Lapis doesn't have time to think about it. She grips Jasper's wrists- her fingers don't reach all the way around- and fights her with all of her strength. Jasper seems more animal than ever, snarling, snapping her teeth. Lapis gathers her strength, and shoves. Jasper falls back against the wall. Like the one before it, this wall topples, too.

 

They stand for a moment, water up past their knees, staring at each other. And then they are the only two static things in this closed-off little world: The lights in the chandeliers blur and smudge and disappear, leaving behind only a murky, green light from an unidentifiable source. The walls melt, becoming shadowy and indistinct. All of the finery, all of the richness, disappears. Lapis can't tell where they are, now, only that it's cold, and dark. She doesn't take her eyes off Jasper, and she doesn't look around at the transformation of the castle.

 

Jasper, either seeing some weakness in Lapis, or losing patience, throws herself forward. This time, Lapis steps forward to meet her. She throws her hands out, and water rises alongside her, rearing like claws to tear at Jasper. Jasper falls to the ground, and gets back up, charging. Lapis sends an arc of water to meet her like a blade, but this time Jasper dodges it, and her fist grazes her cheek as Lapis spins out of her path.

Another impasse: They circle, water churning around their legs as they move. A false start from Lapis makes Jasper flinch, and it's her downfall. Now it's Lapis who's on the move, Lapis who sends Jasper reeling back. She has innumerable fists and claws, and her foe has only her two fists, and her impotent teeth.

 

Jasper is running, now. Lapis is chasing her, and now she feels something new, a sort of wiry, active strength in her limbs. Jasper, lumbering before her, is a bear or an oversized wolf, and Lapis is something lithe, and fast, and deadly. Something reptilian. She can't see herself now that the mirrors are gone, but she knows she must have changed.

 

Stairs appear out of the darkness, and Jasper takes them in leaps and bounds. Lapis follows with ease, tireless, feeling a lethal patience welling up in her mind, erasing all traces of fear from before. And then Jasper halts, turns, kicks out. Lapis begins to fall down the stairs, but the water has been climbing with her, and it rises to cushion her, pushing her to her feet. Jasper has gained a little time. Where is she going? The tower? Is the tower still there?

 

Lapis chases her. She doesn't run anymore, but rides the crest of a wave that swallows the stairs as it rises higher and higher. Jasper will run out of breathing room, soon.

 

Won't she?

 

It starts to seem like the stairs might go on forever. 

 

Jasper turns on her pursuer again, fists battering through water, coming dangerously close to breaking through Lapis's defenses. But Lapis is the ocean, and Jasper is flotsam. 


	9. The Captor and the Captive: 9

How long has it been?

 

Jasper sprawls on the ground across from her, chest heaving, coughing. Lapis realizes she's breathing hard, too.

 

They wound their way up and up the stairs, a spiral that abruptly breached out onto an open space. The room at the top of the tower, with its glass walls and glass ceiling, gone.

 

This is a place without clear shape or form. Shadows and greenish light. 

 

When they reached this place, Lapis had Jasper cornered. She beat her foe down like the tide beats the rocks on a shore. She pummeled her the way the ocean grinds shell into sand. How long ago was it when she finally stopped, seeing the weariness in her enemy's eyes?  How long since she slid down to the ground, to rest, knowing Jasper wouldn't be getting up again anytime soon?

Lapis can almost hear the carriage clock calling her name. But it's broken- no. It never existed to begin with.

 

This thought confuses her, and she presses her hand to her head.

 

The castle never existed. 

 

And yet, she had spent so much time in its halls. She could remember every detail with crystal clarity. The sweet, red strawberries in their bowl. The birds and their bright eyes. The hall of windows, looking out onto scenes that sprang to life the moment she viewed them.

All around her are shadows, a yawning darkness that seems to stretch out all around her into infinity. She's almost afraid to look, but she does, peering through her fingers.

There are no clear borders or walls to this space, but there is an 'up.' Light pours in from above, with a wavery quality, as if viewed through sea glass.

To her astonishment, a shape passes overhead. Lapis gets to her feet, and reaches for it, but it's gone. She suddenly gets the sense that they're both far, far down, residing in some deep place.

Jasper's hair is wrapped around her like the ragged sail of a ship. One yellow eye glints in the greenish light, watching Lapis.

 

"We could leave this place, if you would only let us," she says. Her voice is hoarse, but calm.

 

"No," Lapis says automatically. "I can't."

 

Jasper shifts. With effort, she sits up, slumping.

 

"Aren't you tired?" she asks.

 

"Don't you ever want to go home?"

 Just then, something lights up. It casts their shadows across the wall (yes, there is definitely a wall, rough and ragged, studded with rocks) as it drifts towards them. Pale, milky green, and so fragile it looks nearly incorporeal, it trails a train of ribbons behind it. A jellyfish. Lapis knows this, somehow, just as she knows that roses are red and dungeons have iron bars.

Both Jasper and Lapis are silent as they follow the progress of the jellyfish. Its phosphorescence throbs, and brightens, and they can see the light of a world they both shared, once. 

"Home," Lapis repeats, staring into the image. It suddenly occurs to her that this is Jasper's memory. It features things that never existed when she was there- when she was home.

From somewhere behind her head, another jellyfish appears. It swims forward, and adds to the projection, superimposing pieces of the world Lapis once knew over Jasper's memory.

One by one, more jellyfish wink into existence. Pale pink, translucent blue, or white as tiny moons, they coalesce into pictures of Home.

Lapis looks away, closing her eyes. She tries to remember the castle, but now what she recalls are gold eyes, staring at her from a portrait. She opens her eyes and sees them again- real, this time. Full of pride, full of fear. The softest light from Lapis's memories plays across her face, just as the light from above illuminates individual strands of her white hair.

"We can go together," Jasper says. "Up, towards the light."

"Towards the light," Lapis murmurs. She reaches for Jasper.

Jasper doesn't flinch. She reaches forward, envelopes Lapis's hands in her own. This time, it's Lapis who asks the question. "Do you trust me?"

 

"Yes."

 

When she opens her eyes again, she feels herself moving upwards. Her body, battered, pushed to the brink of exhaustion not moments before, now feels strong and whole. She can feel her legs kicking instinctively, propelling her forward. Her hand, stretched out before her, is green, like the green sun she reaches for.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The parallels between the fairy tale world in The Captor and the Captive and Lapis and Jasper's canon relationship were originally intended to be metaphorical, not literal. Towards the end, that changed.
> 
> Future Gem Tales most likely will not have the same grounding in the factual canon of Steven Universe, otherwise the list of fairy tales to draw inspiration from would get very short.


End file.
